Lana Arleigh
Not to be confused with Lannaire MacArleigh or ''Leanna Arleigh-Osmond.'' Lana Arleigh was one of the main characters in the original, dystopia-based storyline of the BDP series. She is the first character Wiley Osmond befriends after the Final War, and remains at his side for much of the rest of the story. Her ancestors appear in Ridiculous Fantastical Jest, and her descendants appear in Mediocre Space Joke. Early to Pre-War Life Lana Aoife Arleigh was an arctic hare born to Mailys Alivia Arleigh and Gaile Arleigh on the 19th of December 2095. She grew up with her 9 siblings far in northern Lyra, a cluster of islands which mirrors the rough geography of the real world British isles, though with a much colder climate. She grew up alongside her two best friends Refr Reyard and Danfríður "Dana" Lyalldóttir, an arctic fox and dire wolf. She moved to southern Lyra to train as a police officer at the age of 16, where she quickly exceeded expectations. She moved up in ranks rapidly, despite her young age and unlikely species. At 19, she was raised to Sergeant status, at the time the youngest in living memory. A year later she was sent to the Midland capital, as part of a program to send young and promising members of the force into the mainland to help with the high levels of crime in the enormous city. She stayed there for a year with her childhood friend turned fiance, Refr, who was training to become a pilot before he went missing in action during a final push to defeat the Wesland forces once and for all, hours before the western section of the city was destroyed in nuclear devastation. Final War Lana spent the first few weeks of the war in relative comfort, newly engaged to her lover Refr. Originally unconcerned with the skirmishes breaking out over disputed islands, she did her best to aid the Midland Capital Police Department with her relatively small team of five in policing a section of the colder areas of the capital. She did her job well, and crime dropped by 16% before the war began to escalate and riots began to break out. At this point, she was hand-picked by the Deputy Commissioner to safeguard politicians coming to debate and negotiate. Though confused and unhappy about this, she did her job, and didn't complain when she was forced to start wearing riot gear regularly. This continued until the last day of the war, when Lana returned home to find Refr gone, with a note saying he'd been drafted into the Air Force. Lana was devastated by this, and this was only worsened when she awoke to earthquakes the next morning, to find half the city melting and burning. She was called out to guard an unnamed politician from his private home to the secondary city hall, where a meeting of all remaining heads of state were to take place. However, one of her fellow guards stopped on the way, and executed the man in his car, before advising his team to leave the city as quickly as they could. Then he left, to meet an unknown fate. First Post-War Months Lana stayed in the capital, against her superior's advice. She was deeply distraught for some weeks, unwilling to believe what was happening, before an encounter with a violent gang of predators and looters left her close to death and she realised she was not ready for death yet. She began drawing up new maps for the city, which was by then beginning to change massively, overrun by gangs and "packs". Some predators began rising to the top, establishing supremacist sub-cultures and policies. With the lack of any central government and the stagnation of fresh resources from outside the city walls, many turned to quasi-cannibalism, feasting on prey or other predators to sustain themselves. Four major types began to surface; Herds, groups of prey who worked together to protect each other; Scavengers, comprised of both groups, who would eat anything they could; Hunters, Predators who actively sought out prey or smaller predators to serve as food; and Zookeepers, who would enslave prey and treat them as cattle. Many left the city during or immediately after the war; however, as the gangs rose to power, this became increasingly difficult. The largest and most organised gang, the Bloodhounds, comprised entirely of canids, began erecting walls around the perimeter of the city, and guarding them as best they could, with main outposts erected at each of the five highways leading outwards from the city centre. Effectively trapped at the heart of a festering city, Lana began working on different methods to escape. She hid in an old and abandoned underground garage, which she jokingly named the rabbit-hole, where she stockpiled canned and otherwise preserved vegetarian goods. She began repairing her broken police bike, gathering whatever parts seemed fit, spending days doing her best to make it suitable for an escape run. Despite her lack of skill with firearms, she collected what guns and ammo she could, too, both of which were rapidly becoming a rare commodity. With enormous care and luck, she managed to stay hidden, and though she carried a small handgun and an old truncheon, was never forced to use either for almost a month, before a team of Zookeep raiders discovered her hideout and she successfully killed them all from the shadows. The experience deeply disturbed her, but not as much as the contents of a diary she found on one of the bodies, which detailed the goings on in the gang's 'farms'. Filled with disgust, she decided to put an end to their group, and set out to infiltrate the headquarters. Using a looted badge and knowledge gained from the diary, she lied her way into the camp, with less difficulty than originally expected. She stayed amongst them for three days, familiarising herself with the routines and forming a proper plan, before making a visit to the leader's tent on the eve of the third day. She went naked, and proclaimed herself to be a gift from one of the lesser commanders. Upon being granted entrance without further questions, she presented herself before Farmer Drogan, a large grizzly bear and leader of the Zookeeps. He laughed and accepted the 'gift', and she slew him while he slept that night, by ramming a long nail through his eye. She left hurriedly, and returned to her hiding place, where rapidly mutating insects had already cleaned away the fresh meat of her last kills. Lana repeated this style of assassination twice more over the coming five months, and gained infamy; she became known as the "Ghost". She ceased this when it became impossible to infiltrate a pack with any ease, and focused solely on escaping the city. Around this time, grey wolf and former IT-technician Wiley Osmond located a temporary outpost she'd made her own on a search for food. When she ambushed him and held him at gunpoint, he professed his innocence, and Lana- starved for company and in need of an ally for her planned escape run- decides to let him live. The two of them quickly forge a steadfast friendship, and make the final preparations for the city escape. The modified motorcycle is by now completed, and Wiley christens it the [[Lonely Highwayman|Lonely Highwayman]]. Escape from the Capital Lana and Wiley mated before going to bed on an old mattress the hare dragged into her hideout. She told him of Refr and her pre-war life, and they both slept. The next morning, Lana detonated several charges she'd laid out earlier, which cleared a path for them to escape along. Lana drove, and Wiley took up the defence, equipping his own automatic firearms and seating himself behind her on the Highwayman. They began to drive, using the bike's diesel engines, which were significantly louder than the electric ones, but also more powerful. They drove without any major incident for some time, before being pursued by a feral and crazed cheetah woman, who ran off when injured by Wiley's bullets. They were attacked several more times; by an ex-police officer Lana recognised, an elephant who had since joined the ''Herd'', ''wielding an oversized rocket launcher; by a group of large feral cats from the [[Pride|''Pride]]''; ''and finally by a pack of wolves from the Bloodhounds. Wiley succeeded in slaying the Alpha, alongside two other wolves. At this point, the wall was beginning to draw near. The two were attacked by a white dire wolf, who would've torn Lana's throat out; but she recognised her for her childhood friend, and dropped off the bike in surprise. This ended the attack, until they reached the West gate, a makeshift structure guarded by Shardic, an enormous short-faced bear driven into a feral craze by captivity, torture, and severe radiation poisoning, which left most of his body bald and scarred and covered by swellings and tumours. Wiley kills the wretched creature, and it smashes through the gate it's chained to, clearing the way. They escape without further issue, and rest some miles away, with Lana now bleeding profusely from a wound to her upper arm. Neith and Lannaire's Reincarnation After some weeks of travel, during which Wiley saves Lana's life from the grotesque pangolin Gashur, Lana is apparently taken hostage by a mysterious person, who leaves a pheromone-scented note by Wiley's side. (---) Trivia * Lana is loosely based on Judy Hopps from Walt Disney's Zootopia, parodying the character's design and rough story like some other BDP characters. * Lana's country of origin is geographically similar to Scotland, where her creator claims to live. * Lana has amber eyes, where her ancestor Lannaire has gold and her descendant Leanna has hazel. * Lana's favourite song is 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane, though there is no mention of a version of this group existing within BDP. * Artwork